Posted on 06/14/2009 8:02:39 AM PDT by Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama said Saturday he wants to help pay for his health care overhaul by slowing Medicare and Medicaid spending, but hospitals, medical technicians and others are resisting.
The high-stakes struggle over medical care is heating up as Obama declares the status quo unacceptable.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Obviously they oppose it. It will bankrupt them. Then “The One” can sweep in and save the day ( ie. nationalize them all).
" In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky outlines his strategy in organizing, writing in the prologue,
"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.
This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families - more than seventy million people - whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default."[4] Link to article
Obama cuts the Medicare reimbursement to providers, and providers have to make up the difference through “cost shifting” to otheer patients.
Obama is also restricting the Medicare Advantage plans to the point that many are leaving privatized Medicare C and going back to Medicare A and B. However, Medicare Supplements plus a drug plan generally cost more than a Medicare Advantage Plan.
Obama justifies his cuts by saying that MA and MAPD plans do not deserve a “subsidy” from the government -—
Actually, the government only pays MA plans an average of what they SPENT in CLAIMS, per person, the PREVIOUS YEAR, in a particular Medicare Service area. I don't believe much allowance is made, however, for the staff and administration of Medicare, and that expense is NOT reimbursed to the private insurance companies.
In any event, Obama does what he can to create chaos and make people mad at the system, then he rides in on his white horse to “fix” a problem that HE created!
EXACTLY!
Cost shifting is impossible when there is nobody left to shift the costs!
funny thing is I said the same things yesterday as what’s in this article.
Doctors will become civil servants akin to federal bureacrats, with commensurate salaries - and hospitals become like the VA all over the country.
“Cost shifting is impossible when there is nobody left to shift the costs!”
That is one fact that socialists have never been able to fully grasp. It is a LAW not a hypothesis.
Interesting that hospitals now oppose 0’s healthcare “plan”. They have been instrumental in making it harder for daycare facilities such as ambulatory surgery centers(where there is much less cost to patients and insurers) to survive by having regulations imposed upon them that are not imposed in hospital facilities. I, myself, think this is a bit of karma and they will get what they deserve when some form of obamacare passes.
Private health insurance rates and providers' procedural charges would immediately go down. Medicare and Medicaid services would become second or third-rate care, and government rationing would immediately become necessary.
Hospitals and docs should get back into the private sector. Private "cash only" clinics should spring up.
I am 60. I serve on a commission for the aging in my county. Yet, even I know that a society that invests its public resources in the aged over the young is doomed to wither and die. We boomers have to use our private resources for our health or accept public programs that limit health care options to those that have been demonstrated to be effective and cost containing.
I also serve on commissions for young children, many of which live in poverty. Early dental and health screening and treatment can effect the deveopment of a child and his/her potential. That is where money should be invested because the impacts of lack of care into adulthood will affect society to a far greater degree in loss of potential and prolonged burden on the public system.
have to make up the difference through “cost shifting” to otheer patients.
This will set hospitals and insurance companies fighting each other. Divide and conquer.
I believe it is already happening. I heard on one of those dateline 20/20 shows that clinics in Walmart do not accept insurance but a reasonable cash price click here
What a shame...although I am not surprised.
AND, just like Chrysler, will eliminate thousands of doctors from their practices by low reimbursement rates that do not replace adequately the private insurance rates existing now. Without cost shifting, MDs cannot exist on predominently Medicare rates, and, are the most taxed class in the US today by having major reimbursement cut from the top by Medicare before they collect anything. A major cut to some specialties in 1991 of more than 50% in effect, has remained in place all these years...some doctors have run in the red on every case they have done for Medicare since 1991, and, have stayed in practice only because private ins. rates paid their bills.
I wonder if the feds will pay the doctors enough to cover malpractice insurance costs. Insurance costs doctors more than office space and overhead.
Obama seems like he will be in charge of everything. The czars that the kingobamafalsemessiah appointed; are most dangerous at this stage of Obama’s radical marxism.
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